Cooking Family-Style With Chef Greg Marchand

For Greg Marchand, chef at the popular Paris bistro Frenchie, the only prerequisites for a great meal at home are a well-stocked pantry, good company and plenty of wine

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Greg Marchand in his Paris kitchen
Céline Clanet for the Wall Street Journal

Updated March 28, 2014 11:35 p.m. ET

WHEN GREG MARCHAND went to work at London's Fifteen back in 2003, the restaurant's owner, British chef
Jamie Oliver
,
affectionately dubbed him Frenchie. Mr. Marchand, 35, liked the nickname so much that he, in turn, bestowed it on the restaurant, wine bar and café/take-out shop he opened in the Sentier, Paris's garment district, in 2009. It also graces the cover of his new cookbook, "Frenchie: New Bistro Cooking" (Artisan).

Mr. Marchand saw aspects of himself in some of the young staffers at Fifteen, many of them teenagers who needed a fresh start in life. Cooking had been his own way out of the orphanage in Nantes where he spent his childhood. "Every weekend the chef [at the orphanage] took off, so I volunteered to cook," Mr. Marchand said. "It kept me from making trouble in the courtyard." At 16, he entered cooking school in Brittany. His career took off from there, including stints at the Mandarin Oriental hotels in London and Hong Kong, London's Electric House and New York's Gramercy Tavern before he returned to Paris to open Frenchie.

Once a boy without a family, he says he now has two: his wife, Marie, and children, Tom, 5, and Lily, 2½ , at home; and the staff in his professional kitchen. Recently, on his restaurant's fifth birthday, Mr. Marchand sat down with us to reflect on how central food is to both.

My kitchen at home is: very small and it is mostly my wife's territory. The restaurant kitchen is my territory. They are only a two-minute walk apart. We do simple stuff in the home kitchen. We will roast chicken on Sunday with the kids. And we like to throw parties. I take things from the restaurant or go to the butcher, and we will drink a lot of wine. It's never complicated. We always tell a friend to bring the dessert.

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Refrigerator gallery
Céline Clanet for the Wall Street Journal

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Non-stick skilet
Céline Clanet for the Wall Street Journal

The first thing people notice in my kitchen is: all of the photos of the family on the fridge.

In my pantry I always have: a tin of plum tomatoes, a tin of capers, good olive oil and a lot of different vinegars. There's always pasta, rice, dried beans and some Savora, a spicy-sweet mustard I use a lot of. I originally seduced my wife by making a delicious dish with what she had in her pantry. We went to see Madonna in concert, and when we went back to her apartment we were hungry. There were some anchovies in the fridge, and some capers, olive oil and garlic cloves in the pantry. I put it all in a little bit of spaghetti, and she was really impressed. It was a new world for her to date a chef. The lesson is: Always have good things in your pantry.

My favorite tools are: my blender and hand-blender. I like to do a lot of purées and soups at home.

On weekends, I like to make: omelets in the morning—a nice cheesy omelet. I am always reaching for my non-stick pan. When white truffles are in season, I bring them home with a good bottle of wine for just me and my wife, and I make a white truffle risotto. This year was a great season.

The best feature of my kitchen is: its openness. If someone's in the kitchen, someone else can sit at the bar, and you can cook and interact. It easily becomes a gathering place.

The worst feature of my kitchen is: its size. It's too small. When we rented the apartment, there was no kitchen at all. Before it was an atelier—it was just a big open space. So we built the kitchen ourselves.

At this time of year, we eat: a lot of asparagus. We have really good asparagus in France. And then, I love morels, favas, peas—anything green—and new baby potatoes. I especially love wild garlic in the spring, and I love to make wild garlic soup. Wild garlic is the first indicator of spring in France. That's when you know you are in it. It's an exciting time for me.

When I travel I like to eat: street food. I eat the way the local people eat, so it's not necessarily fancy food. If there's a good restaurant, I'll try it. But when I am in New York City, for example, I like to have a Gray's Papaya hot dog or a pastrami sandwich. I feel a strong connection to the U.S., most especially New York City.

If I weren't a chef, I might have become: a butcher. I take a lot of classes from a butcher on our street. I find it very soothing.

My favorite way to eat is: as a family. Meals are the only time of the day where you all are able to have a conversation. Not all families eat together, of course, but I think it is coming back to that. I love the atmosphere created simply by taking time and sitting down together.

—Edited from an interview by Kathleen Squires

Ramp Broth With Fresh Crabmeat

Mr. Marchand uses wild garlic in this recipe. Ramps, available in North American farmers' markets at this time of year, are a close cousin. You can also purchase them online at Earthy Delights (earthy.com).

Total Time: 1 hour Serves: 4

8 ounces ramp leaves (reserve bulbs for another use)

1 cup baby spinach leaves

Salt

Piment d'Espelette

1½ tablespoons unsalted butter

1 thyme sprig

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 slices sourdough bread, cut into ½-inch cubes

7 ounces jumbo lump crabmeat, shell fragments removed

Juice of half lemon, plus 1 lemon, seeds discarded and finely diced

Extra-virgin olive oil

Handful of mixed dill, chervil, and tarragon leaves, roughly chopped

Fleur de sel

12 Kalamata olives, pitted and halved

1 spring onion, peeled and thinly sliced lengthwise

1. Make broth: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add ramp leaves and boil 30 seconds, then add spinach and boil 10 seconds more. Drain in a strainer set over a bowl, reserving liquid, then transfer ramps to a bowl of ice water to halt cooking.

2. Drain greens and gently squeeze to extract liquid. Transfer to a blender and purée, adding about 1½ cups reserved cooking liquid, or enough to achieve a broth consistency. Season with salt and piment d'Espelette.

3. Make croutons: Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add thyme, garlic and bread and sauté until croutons are just golden brown, about 10 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

4. Warm broth: Bring broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

5. Meanwhile, in another small saucepan, toss crabmeat with lemon juice. Add a drizzle of olive oil to crabmeat and heat gently. Add herbs and season with fleur de sel.

6. To serve, pour broth into four bowls, add a spoonful of crabmeat to each and garnish with croutons, olives, diced lemon and onions.

—Adapted from "Frenchie: New Bistro Cooking" by
Greg Marchand
(Artisan)

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